Poetry And Essays Favoured By Soldiers

Southland Times, Issue 24153, 15 June 1940, Page 13

Poetry And Essays Favoured By Soldiers

The women by the fireside probably thinks that the soldier about to face bloodshed and bullets reads appropriately books about murders or battles, lor at least adventure stories, but one city bookseller says that it is to poetry that the man on active service turns in his hour of reading, says The Sydney Morning Herald. It seems a far cry from bayonets to ballads, yet the Great War produced a Rupert Brooke, and poetry has flourished as hardily in times of war as in times of peace, or more so. Perhaps verses provide the greatest possible contrast from the tumult of war, and therefore the greatest possible appeal to lhe warrior. A Sydney bookseller and librarian with wide knowledge of her trade confesses that she was amazed when soldier after soldier came to her shop asking for books of poetry. SLIM VOLUMES FOR THE POCKET “Men have always been our ‘biggest’ buyers of poetry,” she admitted. “They’re far more sentimental' -than women. But it was a definite surprise

to me when Australian Imperial Force men off to Palestine called in search of slim volumes of verse which they could tuck in their pockets and carry everywhere with them to be read and Reread in moments of leisure.

“As a rule, they prefer anthologies such as Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, in which they get ‘a mixed bag’—but Omar Khayam is popular. ‘The Spirit of Man,’ a Great War period anthology, edited by Robert Bridges, is still standing the test of time, and there have been inquiries for Masefield.” Ihe bookseller said that Rupert Brooke, famous soldier-poet of the Great War, was neglected by the modern soldier. “Present-day soldiers have passed the Rupert Brooke ageno flag-flying, but stark realism in their attitude to war. Sometimes women try to give them volumes of Rupert Brooke, but if my advice is asked I try to show the buyer something else. On the other hand, women like Rupert Brooke. Kipling doesn’t appeal to the new boys, either.” CLASSICS IN DEMAND Short stories and essays probably have second place in the soldier’s heart. Anthologies of short stories and essays are favourites, and, since Palestine came into the news, books about the Middle East are in special demand. Where novels are in question, pocket editions of the “classics,” such as the works of Thackeray, Dickens, George Borrow, and Victor Hugo, are most frequently sought. One young man told me he liked to read and re-read the Ingoldsby Legends,” she added. “So far, there hasn’t been a great demand

for humorous works, but a man asked for a copy of ‘1066 And All That,’ which, he said, was wanted by some of the men in Palestine. In fact,,- he said they couldn’t survive without it!” Another city bookseller said that the majority of his soldier clients were staff officers in search of books about Palestine and the East. “I doubt if you can buy a- book about Palestine in Sydney at the present time. The supply was comparatively small, and copies have been snapped up,” he remarked.